Category: AJBlogs

Magnificent Gesu Exhibit: Ask and You Shall Receive
As great projects often do, the amazing exhibition on view at the Fairfield University Art Museum began with an impossible dream. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-02-04

John Mahoney, R.I.P.
John Mahoney, who died today at the age of seventy-seven, was an actor whose talents were discovered comparatively late in life — he became a member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1977, having previously … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2018-02-05

Berkshire Museum Saga: Proposed Agreement to Resolve Art-Sale Dispute Expected Soon in Court
It looks like an agreement may be in the works (subject to court approval) between the Berkshire Museum’s trustees and the Massachusetts Attorney General, regarding the museum’s controversial deaccessions. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-02-05

Would you vote for Julius Caesar?
Be honest – would you vote for any of these dodgy, blundering political contenders? The talking point around Nicholas Hytner’s production of Julius Caesar has been that many of us get to swarm around … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2018-02-05

Horn ensemble
The French horn presents composers with an interesting challenge.  Inextricably tied to the heroic aspirations of the Romantic era, it often struggles to find a range of expression that lies outside of Wagnerian fantasies. … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2018-02-05

Monday Recommendation: Sultanof On Big Bands
Jeff Sultanof, Experiencing Big Band Jazz: A Listener’s Companion (Rowman & Littlefield) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-02-05

 

Another Cheap Shot at Wagner
Was Richard Wagner a “monster”? No so far as I can tell. Here’s my book review of Simon Callow’s opportunistic “Being Wagner” in this weekend’s “Wall Street Journal”: In 1866, a Munich newspaper reported that … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered QuestionPublished 2018-02-03

Recent Listening In Brief: James Hall
As I may have mentioned no more than a hundred times, it is impossible to keep up with the flow of new albums that keep coming even as we continue to hear … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-02-03

James P. Johnson And “Carolina Shout”
Today, February 2, is the birthday of James P. Johnson (1894-1955), who developed stride piano as an art form within an art form. In his time, piano cutting contests were proving grounds—most … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-02-02

Almanac: Anthony Powell on vanity
“Self-love seems so often unrequited.” Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World… read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2018-02-02

They can do better
“Welcome,” says the Philadelphia Orchestra, “to a season of incomparable reach and breadth.” That’s in a press release they emailed, announcing what they’re doing next season. So, really…incomparable? So good that it can’t be compared … read more
AJBlog: SandowPublished 2018-02-01

Artist Dora De Larios, RIP
UNDERSUNG but widely respected, the sculptor Dora De Larios has been working in around Los Angeles for six decades now. I was pleased to be asked to write about her for Los Angeles magazine, … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2018-02-01

Cole’s Roles at Metropolitan Museum: Hudson River School Progenitor, Environmentalist Precursor
The Metropolitan Museum’s just opened Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings (to May 13) is easy on the eyes and a balm to the spirit. But it also sounds a warning that gained new resonance with … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-02-01

Artist Dora De Larios, RIP
Undersung but widely respected, the sculptor Dora De Larios has been working in around Los Angeles for six decades now. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-02-01

The New York City Ballet Looks to Its Future
21st-century works in The New York City Ballet’s Winter season (January 23-March 4) … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-01-31

So much in love
One of the most moving musical performances for me, one I deeply love, one that even makes me cry — it’s Neil Young singing his song “Harvest Moon”, in Jonathan Demme’s Heart of Gold, … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2018-01-31

Share What You Have
This is part of a series, introduced in Baby Steps, about arts organizations’ initial efforts in community engagement. … The essence is that simple, inexpensive initial steps offer the best way to embark upon community engagement. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-01-30

Correspondence, Illustrated: Shoemake On Nash
Vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake has instructed hundreds of aspiring jazz musicians in the techniques and mysteries of improvisation. Among his early students was Ted Nash, who as a young man … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-30

Joe Henry, Poetry, and The Blues
Like a lot of listeners, I’ve long considered Joe Henry to be a smart and vaguely literary songwriter – smart, more-or-less sensitive, good with words. But I was pleasantly surprised when Joe … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-01-30

 

See It Now–Michel Sittow, Extraordinary Painter
Hats off to Estonia, which in celebrating the 100th anniversary of its proclamation as an independent republic in 1918, following the dissolution of the Russian Empire, decided to honor its genius painter – Michel Sittow (c. 1469-1525) – with … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-01-29

A Japanese Company Brings a Forest to New York
Kei Takei’s Moving Earth Orient Sphere performs at New York Live Arts, January 25-27. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-01-28

Monday Recommendation: Crispell, MacDonald, Tremblay
Marilyn Crispell, Raymond MacDonald, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay: Two Duos, Three Trios (Bruce’s Fingers) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-29

Jazz Congress, Winter JazzFest, shape of jazz to come
The Congress’s sessions included JALC managing and artistic director Wynton Marsalis speaking on race and jazz, women in jazz announcing “yes, we’re here,” and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar keynoting about his love of the music. … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2018-01-28
 

Weekend Extra: Meet Laila Biali
Among the many Canadian musicians attracting the attention of listeners outside Canada is the pianist and singer Laila Biali. She was born in Vancouver, B.C., in 1980 and trained in classical piano … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-01-27

AAMD’s Midwinter Agenda: Auction-House Presentation, but No Deaccession Deliberation?
In yesterday’s post, I predicted there would be “a lot of thinking about the unabated deaccession crisis at the midwinter meeting of the Association of Art Museum Directors, which begins next Monday in San Antonio” …
… or maybe not. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-01-25

Dinner at Eighty
“She was a Nazi.” That’s what Edythe said about the wife of one of her two brothers. Until that moment, I never knew my mom had brothers. I must have been 8 or 9, and she pulled out … read more
AJBlog: Out There Published 2018-01-25>

 

Glowering at Lowry: MoMA Director’s Renegade Proposals for Collection Management
While supervising the Museum of Modern Art’s second major expansion during his 23-year tenure, director Glenn Lowry has been thinking about how his soon-to-be reconfigured institution should change with the times. If … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-01-24

Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin
There may be no contemporary writer who’s shaped me, and many of the authors of my generation, more than Ursula Le Guin, who died Monday. Even though she was nearing 90, Le Guin is the kind of person who seemed like she would live forever: … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-01-24

 

 

Be What You Are
This is part of a series, introduced in Baby Steps, about arts organizations’ initial efforts in community engagement. The premises are twofold. First, since relationship building is the core of community engagement, attempting to do … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-01-23

Hugh Masakela Has Died
Hugh Masakela, a hero of African popular music and an inspirational fighter against discrimination, died today in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was 78. Masakela’s rapid ascent to fame in the 1950s led … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-23